Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 2===

They had seen it.

Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki had clearly witnessed that moment.

That figure had crawled out from the cremation chamber’s thick metal door and then run toward the crematorium’s exit.

What was that!?

“W-wait.”

Mourning clothes Shokuhou smiled stiffly while pinching and stretching her cheek.

“Th-this isn’t all some bad dream, is it?”

“What kind of old-fashioned reaction is that, Shokuhou? Your real age is showing- wah!”

The queen, who was an expert in controlling minds yet had no luck at all psychoanalyzing Misaka Mikoto, reached out and poked Mikoto’s right cheek.

“You check too, Misaka-san. With that squishy cheek.”

“…”

“Ow, ow, ow, owwwwww, that’s my boob! You’re not supposed to iron claw that! My boob is going to tear right offffffffffffffffffff!!!”

[[File:GT Index v12 BW3.png|thumb]]

Misaka Mikoto was busy wordlessly grabbing the hunk of fat with a hand and pulling back to perform a durability test, but this did nothing to wake her from the dream and obliterate this world.

“You’re overreacting. It’s not going to tear off from a little thing like this.”

“But, um, Misaka-san, then what is that snapping sound I’m hearing?”

“Idiot. That’s just a pearl necklace breaking, so it’s no big deal.”

“Noooo, this outfit is a rentallllllllll!!!”

Shokuhou had an aura of “not hurting for money”, but Mikoto was aware that damaging rental clothing would mean losing the “trust” that couldn’t be bought.

Also, Queen Shokuhou apparently put on a stiff and tearful smile when she was truly pushed to the edge. There’s your lesson for the day, everyone!!

“But anyway…” said Mikoto (who had bought her mourning clothes and couldn’t return them since her family crest was on them).

Shokuhou had a point.

She had noticed something off.

Back when she touched Kamijou Touma’s face through the coffin’s window.

She had expected it to be dry. After all, it had been a full day since he died.

But instead…''his skin had felt weirdly damp''???

(But his death was confirmed. And it had been quite some time since then. That was way past the point of reviving him with CPR.)

“If we aren’t dreaming, what just happened?”

“M-maybe it’s so cold we’re hallucinating?”

“That would only apply to you, stupid exhibitionist queen,” groaned Mikoto with a hand on her brow.

This didn’t seem to be an artificial dream. …Unfortunately, Academy City technology could pull off a scientific version of “it was all a dream”, but that wasn’t the case this time.

A crematorium official sighed softly while wiping the sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

He radiated anxiety and frustration.

“Wh-what is with those Bio Secure people?”

“(Misaka-san, ever heard of them?)”

“(Nope.)”

Bio Secure.

They probably functioned as a defense against nuclear, biological, and chemical threats. The group in their overly thick powered suits certainly stood out. The part-time monk who had refined his classical music and speaking skills had the mood of his ceremony completely destroyed.

Most of the powered suit group had gone outside.

They appeared primarily interested in Kamijou Touma.

That said, they weren’t just ignoring the crematorium either.

The crematorium workers and high schoolers seemed desperate to try and keep up with the rapidly changing situation, but they couldn’t have behaved like that if they had a proper understanding. The threat of death was close at hand.

“''Kihara.''”

“I’ve never heard of one named ''Goukei'' either.”

They had said their chief had arrived. If Bio Secure was operating with a member of ''the'' Kihara Family at the top, Mikoto severely doubted they were an honest organization.

“E-e-excuse me. Wh-when are we going to be let out of here?”

“Can we at least call someone here? I could really go for a pizza.”

Kamijou Touma’s classmates had done nothing wrong. But they likely didn’t understand the weight of that Kihara name. They wouldn’t be recklessly complaining to the powered suits if they did. Of course, if they could remain ignorant, that would be the best for them, but that wasn’t an option for the #3 and #5.

“How is that idiot still getting us involved in this stuff after he’s dead?”

“Let’s not assume that important-sounding Kihara actually knows what’s going on.”

Whatever the case, they couldn’t just stay here.

The question was if those powered suits would let them go.

A woman standing at the front of the powered suit group was the only one without a suit.

She wore a white coat over a plain white blouse and a tight skirt. And she wore white pantyhose. However, her overall image was unbalanced by the cap covering all of her hair and the large mask she wore. If anything, she may have looked something like a dentist…

“Chief Kihara Goukei,” whispered a powered suit.

While looking toward Mikoto and the others.

“We have two irregulars. If the Bank check is accurate, they are the #3 and the #5. I don’t know what they’re doing here, though.”

Mikoto and Shokuhou twitched in silent reaction.

The woman really was the Kihara.

Why would a monster like that make an appearance now?

Mikoto wasn’t even willing to signal Shokuhou with her eyes. Looking away for even that long scared her. If it came to it, she might have to launch a preemptive strike on her own.

That was her thinking.

Then the woman looked their way.

A gentle voice approached them from behind the large dentist-like mask.



“I am Kihara Goukei, mademoiselles. But feel free to call me Madame Gou.”


[[File:GT Index v12 BW4.png|thumb]]


Mikoto thought she was going to black out for a moment.

The crematorium official must have learned about this earlier because he only averted his eyes. Silently.

(French?)

What the hell?

She could have simply been busty and attractive, but she just had to make it weird, didn’t she!?

Meanwhile, a powered suit approached.

“Chief Kihara Goukei.

“Oui, oui. I assume that is the facility patron? Then let us grownups talk together.”

With an exasperated sigh, the woman called Kihara Goukei turned to face the official while flanked by powered suits.

Her eyes were grinning.

“First, I must ask. You do claim to be in charge here, oui?”

“You must be kidding!! I don’t know how to handle a body infected by who-knows-what. The crematorium isn’t at risk, is it? If we need to do anything to decontaminate, just tell me. I can’t afford to lose my workplace!!”

“Then you are transferring authority to me. You can leave everything to Madame Kihara Goukei☆”

Mikoto felt silly for preparing for a fight after hearing this was a Kihara.

However…

“B-but, Kihara-san. Why, um, were you so quick to believe that a body had gotten back up?”

“Now, now, monsieur. No need to be nervous about speaking to me. Let’s just say it isn’t out of the question here in Academy City. In the past, I have seen a swarm of ants capable of turning a human into an anthill with their human form intact, and a transparent movable liquid coating that can cover a corpse and then stretch and contract in response to specific frequencies.”

What in the world?

Mikoto had never heard of either of those things.

She couldn’t imagine where that technology came from or what kind of wickedness it had been used for.

“We must retrieve the spécimen so that I can inspect it and determine just what caused the body to get back up. Controlling the dead is not that unusual a technologie. I should be able to explain after opening up the body and taking a peek inside. And once I determine where that technologie came from, I will find the villain responsible.”

(I-I don’t like how she’s saying it, but it scares me that what she’s saying makes a lot of sense!!)

Mikoto bristled and very nearly shouted out loud.

She couldn’t let the weakling look fool her.

A Kihara was still a Kihara.

Meanwhile, mourning clothes Shokuhou’s attention had shifted to her small purse. Specifically, to a TV remote inside.

“Killing moi would accomplish nothing.”

Kihara Goukei whispered behind her mask before Shokuhou even pulled it out.

She may have encountered family members who freaked out over her treatment of the deceased.

Pure villains were bad, but panicked good people could be terrifying as well.

“Bio Secure’s violence is based on a flow chart so that it can continue to function no matter who is infected. Thus, my own mort will not stop the team from acting.”

For one thing, a dead body had stood up and left on its own two feet.

Had that really happened?

Mikoto had seen it herself and even she found it hard to believe.

So…

“Shokuhou, have you been doing some weird training when I wasn’t looking? Really, I’m shocked you of all people learned the importance of daily hard work. I never imagined the day would come your Mental Out could reach my brain.”

“Could you not use me to fuel your nonscientific escapism!? I saw him get back up too! What in the world is happening!?”

Shokuhou must really have been panicked because she tearfully grabbed at Mikoto. The queen had really lost if if she was relying on the same person who had just grabbed her boob without permission.

(Hm.)

Still in the black kimono that looked terribly out of place on a 14-year-old, Misaka Mikoto crossed her arms and looked up at the ceiling. When she got annoyed like this, she looked more like a yakuza boss’s wife than a funeral attendee.

A few options came to mind.

And the most likely were…

“The body was in a state of suspended animation, the body was switched for a living lookalike, or the reports of his death were fake news. Those are probably the only ones that are physically and realistically possible.”

“You know those are all a stretch, don’t you!? You saw how dead he looked before the funeral. That rules out suspended animation or a lookalike. But whatever the case, the adults are going to do something awful to him if we don’t catch him first!!”

After they yelled at each other (like good friends?), Mikoto suddenly fell silent.

If they found him…what happened next?

Would they shove him back in the coffin, shut the lid, shove that in the cremation chamber, burn him, and live happily ever afterwards?

That felt like fundamentally missing the point somehow.

If he had gotten back up, why not leave him like that? Why not just let him escape?

Just then, Kihara Goukei clapped her hands as if signaling a change.

“Now, everyone. It is time to begin our search for the cadavre. No need to over complicate matters. No complicated mystère solving is needed in the real world. If we catch him and autopsy him, the vérité will be revealed.”

“Kh.”

Mikoto’s body moved seemingly on its own.

She had a single target.

It didn’t matter that she was wearing a kimono. She cut behind Kihara Goukei as sharply as a knife and then placed an arm around her neck.

For some reason, the shocked response came not from Kihara Goukei herself but from Shokuhou Misaki.

“Misaka-san, what are you doing!?”

“I don’t know. I just know I can’t let them autopsy him without question like that!!”

And why aren’t you using Mental Out, #5!? Don’t hold back out of fear!!

Meanwhile, Kihara Goukei was entirely carefree.

She was being strangled from behind, but she was smiling.

“Oh, an étranglement? I give, I give.”

“You are aware I’m Academy City’s #3, aren’t you? If I produced a billion volts like this, it’d fry your precious Kihara Family brains. Want to see what having average smarts is like?”

“Now that is a fate worse than mort.”

Kihara Goukei had been addressed as “chief”. The powered suits had all sought instruction from her. No matter what she claimed, taking her hostage should keep Bio Secure as a whole from acting.

The French-speaking woman smiled.

“Now, just follow the flowchart☆”

Mikoto heard a dull ripping sound.

As out-of-place as it was, it reminded her of when she would bite into a thick beef tongue meal.

And that wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

The large mask was dyed red. Kihara Goukei appeared to have thick, dark red blood spilling from her mouth. A lot of it.

“Damn!! Why would you bite your own tongue!?”

“Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.”

The woman tried to say something with a smile, but it was incomprehensible.

No hesitation at all?

This was the extreme form of a weakling.

The real battle began once she lost. Her leaving the battlefield was no more than a trigger.

Kihara Goukei. Mikoto had run into a few members of the Kihara Family before, but this woman appeared to be annoying in a different way from the others.

Mikoto immediately pulled off the mask and shoved a towel in her mouth, but she wasn’t sure how you were supposed to treat someone who had bit their tongue. One of the funeral attendees appeared to be a school doctor, so she had no choice but to leave the woman in her care.

(Oh, god!! She smashed the organization’s brakes right on front of me! I should’ve zapped her before she had a chance to say anything!!)

At that moment, Shokuhou, whose black dress made her look like a wicked witch, whispered something. With her head lowered.

“It’s raining outside.”

“What does that have to do with any-”

“I don’t know exactly how long since he died, but what if he gets wet? Won’t he rot?”

“…”

“…”

They both fell silent.

And then they both ran for the exit.

They had no idea what condition Kamijou Touma was in right now. But if they didn’t capture him soon and throw him into a full-body dryer or something, he would definitely end up as a horrific gory mess!!